yo wrote:When I'm asked to quote on a project the first thing I ask is what is your budget and schedule? To date no one has ever told me their budget and very few have said a schedule. I tell them that I am going to scope it at the maximum and we can go from there, but it would be so much easier if I had a sense of where they wanted to be so I could say "no thanks", or "I can give you this much for that much"....

What I find weird is that everyone tells me that one of their business advantages is "speed to market". That's great, but then you have no idea when the product needs to hit the floor and it inevitably stalls out until your competitor launches their version and it becomes you number one priority. Very strange.

slippyfish wrote:@Mr-914 - Critical Chain sounds like a good resource for project managers or operations people. Or perhaps even start-ups. Do you see practical applications to the industrial design process itself, or perhaps ID within a product development organization?

I see a practical application everywhere and anywhere! It has more effect if the organization can recognize the advantages and adopt it too, but you can make just your department more productive by using the methodology.

For example, I used to give deadlines for everything, even projects that were on the back burner or uncertain to advance outside of design. Moreover, I would limit the department work-in-progress so that the designers could focus on actually finishing projects. Those two small things that seem so common sense boost productivity at least 100% in my experience.

The difficult part after that is getting management to understand what one is doing. Because at the same time, I had to ignore daily emergencies to continue the focus. That requires political skill to pull off over an extended period of time.

Halfway through 'DUNE', the masterpiece from Frank Herbert. Having seen the film at least a dozen times I initially had the unpleasant experience of comparing scenes with chapters, but that effect has diminished over the pages, and now I can absorb the writing and story for its own merits. It is astounding in scope, detail, and the creation of a consistent universe. I love how the prevailing thought or backstory is the law of the Butlerian Jihad - that machines should not replace humans. Computers and AI are outlawed, and as the story shows, are inferior to human intellect, instinct, and ingenuity.

I went ahead and got the hardcover with the foreword by Neil Gaiman; the cover design and embossing is very nice.

Revolution from Above, the Demise of the Soviet System by David Kotz and Fred Weir. An academic book on the collapse of the Soviet Union. It's weird that I have lived through the event and know almost nothing about it.

Currently, I am reading Zig Ziglar's Secrets of Closing the Sale. The book is an amazing read. I look forward to my 2nd and 3rd reviews.I really like the fact that he shares a lot of his own stories that you can even relate to situations outside of selling.If your looking to increase your knowledge about how " A Real Sales Call " in any industry should go, here you can find more business information. Anyway, no one better than Zig.

I am reading 'The Swarm' by Frank Schatzing.Still a very good sci-fi novel and very well informed. It is about the potential release and extraction of methane from the ocean, an interesting topic since there is twice as much methane in the earth as natural gas and it's a greenhouse gas 30 times more potent than CO2 with a natural oxidation span of a decade. Moreover there are some tipping points in earth's climate such as the melting of permafrost which can lead to either drastic heating of the planet or a new ice age. Things to think about.On the list are also Hacking Growth and the Tesla Revolution, both from this year.

Nice. Ikigai is an immensely popular book in Europe at the moment - it applies to design as well. And I like how it does not put the company, you as a designer or society in the center, but rather the purpose of life itself. I feel like this diagram is like a top-view of an Eiffel tower like 3D structure that you can climb by combining the different areas.

ralphzoontjens wrote:Nice. Ikigai is an immensely popular book in Europe at the moment - it applies to design as well. And I like how it does not put the company, you as a designer or society in the center, but rather the purpose of life itself. I feel like this diagram is like a top-view of an Eiffel tower like 3D structure that you can climb by combining the different areas.

I like this. Kurt Vonnegut would like it as well, I think. His take was a bit more pithy: “I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.”I think that hits all four quadrants.